A Comparison Of European American, Chinese Immigrant, And Korean Immigrant Mothers’ Engagement In Control

Abstract

Parental control includes behaviors intended to modify children’s thoughts, emotions and behaviors according to adult expectations. Examining key socialization moments when mothers engage in control across different cultural groups can illustrate culturally-unique and shared parenting priorities. Fifty European American mothers (M_age = 37.49 years old, SD=4.84), 50 Chinese immigrant mothers (M_age=37.74 years old, SD=4.38), and 33 Korean immigrant mothers (M_age=36.03 years old, SD =3.62) identified situations when they expressed control over their preschool-age children during semi-structured interviews. Six situation codes emerged from the interviews: Prevention of Danger, Daily Behavior, Child Difficult Behavior, Interpersonal Relations, Interpersonal Behavior, and Moral Development. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), follow-up ANOVAs, and t-tests revealed that European American mothers were more likely to use control than Chinese immigrant mothers during situations of Danger Prevention and Interpersonal Relationships. Chinese immigrant mothers expressed control more than European American mothers when their children displayed difficult behaviors. Both Chinese immigrant and Korean immigrant mothers emphasized control more often for moral development than European American mothers. Finally, Korean immigrant mothers reported using control more often for interpersonal behaviors than both European American and Chinese immigrant mothers. This paper discusses the findings with regard to each group’s cultural priorities.